Is Your Teen Graduation from High School Soon? What's Next?

By Hayley Mears

As your teenager nears graduation, knowing what kind of work or career is the right fit and supports their interest and goals isn’t easy. As students enter their senior year, they spend a lot of time thinking about what they really want to do in life and what colleges and schools have the programs that best support their goals. That’s why Monterey Bay Economic Partnership and Bright Futures Educational Partnership

have joined forces to bring free career resources through the Monterey Bay Career Connect (mbcareerconnect.org) website. A one-stop shop for college and career readiness, the website provides information about local career pathways, scholarships, and skills training programs. A recent addition to the site is a “How do I…” section that provides answers about paying for college, finding local scholarships, and preparing for the SATs.

Once on the website, you will find tabs connecting to Monterey Bay Career Coach, which allows students to take a career assessment, explore careers, salaries, responsibilities, qualifications, and live job postings within the Monterey Bay region and California. They can also browse local college programs & trainings offered in the Monterey Bay region, bookmark careers and programs of interest, and build a professional resume and download to Microsoft Word-ALL FOR FREE!

High school students are saying the following about using the site:

“MB Career Connect offers great advice on how to build a resume and is very user friendly. Giving data about income and job prospects help in making future careers.”
– Costanoa High School Student, 2018

“The Career Coach site is really cool! I will use it and I like the way it shows the local wages for careers I’m interested in.”
– Costanoa High School Student, 2018

“I like that there are so many tools that make it easy to find out information and help in areas that may be confusing.”
– BGCS HS Student

Launched in 2017, Monterey Bay Career Connect now works with six cost-share colleges in the region to provide inclusive college curricula and four sponsors: Santa Cruz and Monterey County Offices of Education, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Workforce Development Boards.

Each college; Monterey Peninsula College (MPC), California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), Hartnell College, Central Coast College, Cabrillo College and Brandman University, provides up-to-date information on career paths that map to the college curricula available to the students.

We encourage students to go online, create a FREE profile to save all your information and start keeping track of your educational history and work experience!

Hayley Mears is a Santa Cruz native with over eight years experience in education, career services, job development, and student counseling. Prior to joining Monterey Bay Economic Partnership in October 2017 in the Workforce Development Program Manager role, Hayley worked at UC Santa Cruz for over 5 years, serving students in various positions in academic advising. Her work experience also includes positions as a job development specialist with the UC Santa Cruz Career Center in 2012 and career development specialist with special education students at Santa Cruz City School District. Hayley has a M.A. in Education Counseling with a focus in career services from San Jose State University, Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Dramatic Art from UC Santa Barbara, and an Associate of Arts from Cabrillo College.